Duffy’s defence targets ex-Harper spokesperson Carolyn Stewart Olsen

The argument that ‘Duffy wasn’t the only one’ could become a core part of defence lawyer Donald Bayne’s strategy in the trial of his client, Senator Mike Duffy.

As the fourth week of the hearing began Monday, Bayne said Conservative Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen claimed expenses for a home in Ottawa she owned for some years before her Senate appointment — just as Duffy did.

Duffy is facing 31 criminal charges for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. Some charges related to his claiming living expenses for the Kanata home he bought five years before his Senate appointment.

He declared his primary residence was Prince Edward Island, where he hadn’t lived full-time in decades. However, he owned a cottage there.

Stewart Olsen, once Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s press secretary and director of strategic communications, was named to the Senate in 2009 to represent New Brunswick at the same time Duffy was appointed a P.E.I. senator.

She had been living and working in Ottawa for many years, but was born in New Brunswick and worked there as a nurse. In 2002 she became Harper’s press secretary while he was still opposition leader.

Senate records show she claimed expenses for her Ottawa condo for almost two years after her appointment. Her primary residence, she declared, was a home she owned in N.B.

“She was one of the people sitting in judgement of Senator Duffy, wasn’t she?” Bayne asked former Senate finance director Nicole Proulx.

Proulx, in her first full day of cross-examination by Bayne, appealed to Justice Charles Vaillancourt to argue that it was not her role to comment on Stewart Olsen. He ignored her.

Bayne pressed on. Proulx must have known Stewart Olsen was on the steering committee of the larger Senate Committee of Internal Economy, he said. That committee recommended Duffy’s case be referred to the RCMP.

He was referring to senators’ national capital region residence, or secondary home — which they can expense if their primary residence is located 100 kilometres or more from Parliament Hill in the province they represent.

“I would have to go back and see the form,” Proulx replied. She had earlier testified that once a senator signed a form declaring both a primary and a secondary residence he or she would automatically be assigned a travel budget by the finance directorate.

That budget would allow them to claim expenses for living in Ottawa, including for meals, while the Senate was sitting or while on Senate business in the capital.

She said it wasn’t her department’s responsibility to check on whether senators were already residing in Ottawa at the time of their appointments, or how much time they spent in their primary residences.

An independent audit found Duffy, as a senator, put in only 30 per cent of his time in P.E.I., and the rest of the time largely in Ottawa. Duffy was ordered to repay $90,000 for the expenses and meals he claimed for his Ottawa home.

He famously repaid the money with a cheque donated by Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright. For that, he’s been charged with accepting a bribe.

Both Stewart Olsen and Wright are expected to appear as witnesses. Neither is facing charges.

In October, 2013, Duffy made a fiery speech to the Senate, as his fellow senators were debating his suspension from the Red Chamber. He accused Stewart Olsen, along with Senator David Tkachuk, of threatening to issue a press release saying he was disqualified to sit in the Senate if he refused to repay his expenses.

Earlier Monday, Proulx testified there were no definitions for what constituted a ‘primary’ or ‘secondary’ residence when Duffy was first appointed to the Senate.

“But there is a definition of national capital regiion residence,” Bayne continued. He pointed out the National Capital Region residence had to be within 100 kilometres of Parliament Hill and must not be the senator’s provincial residence.

All things about the Senate are getting more and more confusing. Were there any ‘real’ rules at all or are they made up on the fly and why wasn’t the public aware of all of this before the toxic Tories got the job.

Tom Mulcair of the NDP who wants to do away with the Senate must be grinning from ear to ear these days, Mr. Bayne has become a great pinch hitter for Mr. Mulcair”s crusade to do away with this dumping ground for political bag men and women of both the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Mulcair is wrong on this one. The only way to abolish the Senate is to open up massive constitutional reform, with prolonged regional and partisan arguments ensuing. This would be a big mistake in terms of our overall national stability. Please believe me, the “abolitionist approach” to attaining a much-needed Senate solution would throw our whole country into significant existential upheaval at this particular point in time. There may however be “protocol methods” for instituting broad Senate (and other) reforms without opening up that major “can of worms”. IMHO, pretty much a no-brainer when you consider this viewpoint. Although I will grant you that our Canadian Constitution has some serious flaws, it’s a whole lot better having it “as is” than not having it at all.

From above: “Both Stewart Olsen and Wright are expected to appear as witnesses. Neither is facing charges.” Big surprise. Similar to the big surprise that Harper (and probably Paulson as well) will NOT be called as a witness. Does anyone actually believe the PM has nothing relevant to add to the testimony? Oh that’s right …certain folks are “above the law” in Canada.

Awwww, poor poor Nicole Proulx feels put upon and on trial, just because she is being forced to answer questions she doesn’t want to. I’d have some sympathy for this person were it not clear she was taking sides before this trial when she somehow found time to meet multiple times with the Crown and RCMP investigators but not once with the Defence, despite it being obvious she would be a major witness when it came to Senate rules for both sides. When I heard Baynes make this point last week I was frankly a little shocked. Then when it turns out she isn’t testifying about actual written down hard rules but her impressions of what they should have been/were, and when challenged to present the actual black and white rules she was claiming existed could not present them and instead she complains to the judge about being on trial, this after that same judge has already while she was on the stand made clear to the Crown that he does not feel like he is hearing real evidence when it comes to the actual rules of the Senate? Seriously?!?!?!

You know, I have long felt many who sit in the Red Chamber had entitlement issues, but at the moment I am finding this former staffer to be no better, and arguably worse. she KNEW she was involved in a very high profile criminal trial with massive national implications politically, did she think she could act as she has for one side while spurning the other and NOT get roasted by the defence for doing so? When she decided to bend over backwards to help make the Crown’s case for them and turn away the defence she invites exactly the kind of rough ride she got, and she has the audacity to complain about it as if she was the one being unfairly put upon? Really? Then she has the gall to try to get the judge to aid her in not testifying as an expert witness on a similar case with another sitting Senator whose residential situation and appointment circumstances are the same as Duffy? Really (redux)? I’m so glad the judge showed her the proper lack of concern for her delicate sensibilities, especially as it is more and more turning out that her once thought solid testimony for the Crown last week was more and more her opinions, not hard facts.

Seriously, this lady has really offended me, and it isn’t like I am preferring either side in this case, for me the window it will open into how the PMO worked at its core is the real thing I care about, whether Duffy is guilty or not, well I can let the evidence show me that. The Stewart-Olsen similarities and equivalences are important given they were both made Senators at the same time when Harper should and did have every reason to know they were long term residents of Ottawa and therefor resident in Ontario and not Maritime Provinces, and the fact that she got to sit in judgement on Duffy as well as was key in the scheme to bury the Duffy expenses and the editing of the Deloitte audit and still sits in the Red Chamber to this day uncharged or any trouble at all is not a minor point for consideration either.

I’ve never been a fan of Duffy, I found him too openly partisan even back in the 70s and 80s when he was still more local to the Maritimes before he became the dean of the national press in Ottawa. I’ve always found him to be overly impressed with himself and nowhere near as astute an analyst of federal politics as he has liked to see himself as (not saying he was unskilled here, just that I thought he was not the super genius he always appeared to think he was, and that he had some blind spots thanks to that partisanship, and he also always seemed to have this fixation on becoming a Senator someday, this was hardly new by the time Harper was in a position to make him one). I also could tell he liked the finer things in life and believed it owed to him even before becoming a Senator, so his turning into one of those Senators who saw the Red Chamber as the answer to ensuring his high lifestyle, not a shock to me.

All that being said though, I’ve always believed him when he said he honestly believed he had done nothing wrong, and that this all came out of the PMO. We know from Baynes that Wright said to the RCMP that at the beginning of this he told Harper that Duffy may well be correct, and that they would be forcing an innocent man to repay monies he did not actually owe according to the rules, and that Harper needed to know that and make that decision knowingly, which he clearly did. It is clearly consistent with Harper operating practice to always deal with the optics regardless of the facts whenever anything looked like it could become a problem, and that the first priority would always be to protect the image of Harper, his government, and the CPC before any individual (aside from himself as noted). This is also what makes Wright’s action so egregious, not merely because it is clearly a bribe, but that it was done to prevent an independent audit from being accepted showing wrongdoing of some sort by a sitting Senator close to Harper solely to protect the political image of Harper himself.

This is clearly abuse of power and position corruption of a sort we have rarely if ever seen anywhere in this nation at any level of government, and that it was done by the CoS to the sitting PM. This for the most micromanaging PM in our history who claims that on this one file he was totally in the dark until the media broke the story despite the many people and hundreds of man-hours this issue took in his office, That his loyal CoS who he called an honourable man doing the honourable thing with this payment for the first several days it went public would have let his boss totally out of the loop in this sensitive a political matter and decision? No, that flies beyond reason even with a normal PM, let alone one as micromanaging as Harper’s record shows him to be. That is what makes the involvement of the PM the opening into the operations of the PMO via this trial/case possible, and it shows among other things that Stewart-Olsen was Harper’s woman in body and soul ready to do whatever was wanted of her regardless of how it affected her actual Senate responsibilities. Which given her own issues in being made a Senator matching Duffy’s, and being an even more rabid Harper partisan and lackey makes it obvious why she is a fair and important target for Baynes to be going after.

In the end, I hate to say this, but I think Duffy was within his limits actually an honourable man doing what he thought he was allowed to since he was being such an important and central tool for the PM from the day he was appointed to at least the night of the 2011 majority win. I believe that he genuinely believes he is a wronged man here, and that because of the way the Senate is set up actually can make a decent case for that. That the real issues here originate from the PMO side from beginning to end, and that is why Duffy is fighting so hard, because he refuses to be yet another patsy for Harper to run over with his massive bus, his own ego will not let himself be so reduced, especially when he believed honestly that he was set up. That from the moment Harper appointed him to the Senate and used him for years to build the support for his 2011 majority win he was being assured by Harper and his core staff that everything he was doing/expencing was fine even when he clearly had concerns from the outset on things like the residency issue means that he relied on their advice and authority for his belief he was acting appropriately.

I think Bayne is capable of making this case and showing it, and what we have been seeing to date certainly makes that seem realistic to me, which means once we get to the part of the Crown’s case where the CPC Senators and senior PMO staff end up on the stand it is going to get EXTREMELY uncomfortable for the Harper government and Harper personally. Whether it is enough to alienate the voters, who can say at this point, but it will clearly show just how corrupt his office was, either by his direct design or by his utter incompetence and neglect, neither explanation being a good one, especially for someone claiming to be the strong leader you can trust and only he can be trusted, and either explanation being enough to call for his removal from this office by anyone not blinded by hyper-partisanship. This is the sort of corruption of rank incompetence that cannot be considered acceptable in ANY PM regardless of who they are or what party they lead..